Let's talk manga! ^_^

Trigger discipline is one of those things that I never knew about for the longest time. But now I notice it everywhere in new and old material. Either because its there, or more glaringly because it isn't.

I recently finished a series called Emma. Its a manga about maids set in historical England. As a whole its basically a love story. But it also mixes in a hefty dose of things like class divide and how daily life was run back then. Fascinating stuff, if you like history. The art starts off a little plain but the artist (who is also the writer) greatly develops her skills over the course of the series.

Tamren:

Definitely check out the anime for that, too. It's one of my favorite manga and anime. I like how its sensibilities combine traditional Japanese and Victorian English sensibility (mainly in making Victorian era England understandable to modern audiences).

I found the slice of life portions to be especially interesting. There are other manga of like nature. You don't need to be interested in history per se to find it fascinating, IMO. The daily life of an underground race driver in Japan is almost as much of another world.

Oh yeah i remember that one. It's basically a manga about economy... didn't know spice and wolf as also about that maybe i'll check it out. Yeah I really like it, for the stated reasons above as well "Hero" doesn't need to get anymore powerful he's basically a bad ass (an idiot mind you but still) and can whoop anyone but the Maou (read main bad demon) convinces him that this war is currently a good thing for both sides and convinces him to change his objectives (defeat maou and win the war for the humans) to find a long term resolution for both sides that minimizes death.

I've said it once and i'll say it again i freaking love Nobelese.

I caught the first two episodes of Emma on youtube. Not sure of the legality on that... but it looks pretty good.

I recently stumbled across a new manga. Its called "Maoyuu Maou Yuusha". AFAIK this roughly translates to "Archenemy and Hero". The manga is a sort of parody on your typical JRPG setting. Characters are named things like "White Swordsman" and "Young Merchant". But it does have a serious note to it and delves deeply into some interesting topics. I learned more about war economies and agriculture reading the (so far translated) chapters than I did in all my schooling years combined. In that regard it's a lot like Spice and Wolf, just a little lighter on the economics.

From what I've been told this was an original story posted onto the web for people to enjoy. And they liked it so much that the author fully fleshed it out into a series of light novels. It is now being translated into manga format in FIVE different magazines, all running with different artists. The one I read has 11 chapters translated so far and has the best art style in my oppinion. Thought it is nice to see different artistic interpretations.

I'm currently loving Bakuman. It's by the same team that did Death Note. It's about a pair of manga creators, and it's pure joy. I'm limiting myself to a chapter a night.

I'm reading Tough. I enjoy it, but it gets a bit tedious. I did enjoy Bakuman, though. Lots of ups and downs there.

Bakuman just recently finished and it's AWESOME the whole way through keep reading Kid.

Cayne wrote:

Oh yeah i remember that one. It's basically a manga about economy... didn't know spice and wolf as also about that maybe i'll check it out.

IMAGE(http://uprootrestaurant.com/images/heart-icon.png) Holo IMAGE(http://uprootrestaurant.com/images/heart-icon.png)

Yes, I'm breaking my lurking in this thread just to say that.

I've wondered how well the stories have translated into the manga. I assume they are like the anime in that they follow the novels fairly closely... with more women thrown in where needed.

Cayne wrote:

Bakuman just recently finished and it's AWESOME the whole way through keep reading Kid.

NOOOOOOOoooooooooooo.....sniff.

It is great and I don't want it to end.

What's nice is that they don't run into the problem that a bunch of manga's run into which is when they get canned they only have a few chapters to try and wrap everything up. Bakuman finished on it's own terms and said thank you all for reading and WERE OUT!!! *applause* *clapping*

so it was nice. Also i really enjoy reading a manga and having it finish, stuff like One Piece Bleach and Naruto which just keep going and going... it's like what's the point of reading a book that never ends.

Cayne wrote:

Also i really enjoy reading a manga and having it finish, stuff like One Piece Bleach and Naruto which just keep going and going... it's like what's the point of reading a book that never ends.

Not a fan of Marvel/DC, eh? Naruto has to be winding down, especially considering its current arc. As for One Piece, Luffy never fails to entertain. I even enjoyed the Skypeia arc greatly which was, IMHO, the weakest one. His brand of buffoonary always gets a laugh and the story has made significant leaps forward. Including many surprising deaths and plot developments.

Found a new manga that's up to 39 chapters translated from korean... so actually it's another manhua i suppose.

Girl of the wild's

It's a fun slice of life / martial arts / semi-harem type setting where the university/high school (i'm unclear on which, the age range seems to be high school, but i believe they reference it as a university) where the school has been girls only till this year and only one male student applied. Of course he's your typical pansy boy in a tough spot (actually well written and interesting back story on him) but all the girls at the school are monster athletes taking top prizes in almost every physical sport/ fighting style for national competition. Story progress's from there but i'll leave you to read it to avoid spoilers.

FYI it's a freely produced web comic in Korean so don't feel bad about reading it online.

I'll second (fifth?) the Vinland Saga and Team Medical Dragon recommendations. They're really well done.

A few other lesser known mangas I recommend are:

ARES - a story of swordsmen, mercenaries and warring kingsdoms. The battle sequences are very fun, and the characters are interesting. It wrapped up (somewhat hurredly at the end) in around 180 chapters.

Addicted to Curry - A silly story about a curry chef, his friends, and the challenges they face. In each edition the chef cooks a new type of curry, for whatever reason, and they get into the history and recipe of the dish. If you enjoy cooking, this is a fun one.

Bartender - Similar to the one above, Bartender gets into the history/recipes of various drinks, and follows a master bartender making his way in the world. The characters are endearing, and they find clever/entertaining ways to give the cocktail lessons.

Of the shoujo manga, I found Nodame Cantabile and Bitter Virgin to be memorable. I liked Kare Kano as well. They don't regularly devolve into sparkle fests.

Nodame Cantabile - like the anime, a manga about college students pursuing careers in classical music. It's somewhat less ambitious than the anime, because the anime is notable for music and fingering animation.

Bitter Virgin pursues a dark narrative about a girl's past from the perspective of a male admirer.

Kare Kano is initially about this arrogant, stupid, overachieving girl and how she met her match in a similarly "excellent" boy. The initial arc is told mostly from her point of view and explores how she grew as a person in the initial part of the relationship. The second arc explores his personal issues which are significantly more disturbing.

LarryC wrote:

Bitter Virgin pursues a dark narrative about a girl's past from the perspective of a male admirer.

That's one way of putting it. The other way is "Holy sh*t. Someone give that girl a hug."

LarryC wrote:

Of the shoujo manga, I found Nodame Cantabile and Bitter Virgin to be memorable.

Bitter Virgin is probably one of my favorite manga and definitely my favorite shoujo one. I do recommend.

Both Bakuman and Girl of the Wilds are dangerous recommendations! I lost two days to them without being aware of it! Dang. It never ceases to amaze me how mangaka can take something that could conceivably be a BBC documentary and make gripping manga out of it.

I expect an exciting Meerkats of the Serengeti manga at some point in the future.

Fairy Tail ch. 284

Spoiler:

Very predictable once we knew what the challenge was. None-the-less I was satisfied reading it. Good to see Fairy Tail finally coming out on top and showing how well they fight. :D

Yes thank god for Erza!!! (I really don't like the predictable nature of battle manga... "Oh noooess i have failed" *ARGHHGOQWER POWER UP* "HAHA now i kick ass")

And your welcome LarryC, oh here's another one i found recently Kubera, and then one i found a while ago Tower of God and Nobelese.

They are Korean and long format but on www.mangahere.com they got truncated down to more manageable size and awesome in color!

I'm still a sucker for Bartender though it updates slowly. ditto for Cage of Eden

Started aphorism... an interesting take but i'm not sure how much staying power it really has.

Oh noes! That's totally going to kill my month. I love/hate you Cayne! Nobelese sounded interesting until I read that it was about vampires. That genre's a little overdone right about now. Is it any good?

i love it, and it's not really vampires, more like super powered beings that humans call vampires for lack of anything better to call them, it's really very good.

So, I haven't been paying attention to this thread, but if this Bakuman manga is anything like Death Note, I'm going to need to read it. What's the best method of accessing it? Looks like each volume is $10 on Amazon. That seems a bit pricey. Is there another better, legal, cheaper method (where the monies go to the creators) of accessing the content?

If it's actually good, that's not really pricey. I just wanted to check before I start throwing money around.

i can't stress how much Bakuman is not like Death Note.

Grenn wrote:

i can't stress how much Bakuman is not like Death Note.

Sorry, I wasn't talking about plot or anything like that. I was just trying to say that if it's as awesome as death note...

I think Bakuman is actually better than Death Note, in my humble opinion. Bakuman always made me smile, for one thing. Ten dollars per volume is a fair price for the awesome you are getting.

Just checked out Chapter One of Girl Of The Wilds. Thanks for pointing it out, Cayne!

I think Bakuman's a lot more entertaining and funny if you're a creative professional, just like Genshiken resonates more if you're an actual geek. I'm not a creative professional, but there are parts that I think would have a lot more personal impact if I did that for a living, or maybe even just for fun.

Yep, volume one of Bakuman is awesome. Thanks for bringing it up in the thread, guys. From my perspective, being a creative professional has nothing to do with enjoying it because I loved it and am not a creative professional. It's just a damn good story with snappy writing. I will be acquiring the rest of the volumes asap.

If volume 1 was the highest of ups, it will have to go pretty far down for me not to enjoy it.

Edit: I forgot to mention my favorite part from Volume 1. Had me cracking up.

Qualification 1: Conceit - where Takagi says "Yeah, I've got that. But then again, I'm not being conceited. I really do have the talent..." and Mashiro says "That's what you call being conceited."

The expression on Takagi's face completely makes that scene. Sooooo funny.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Yep, volume one of Bakuman is awesome. Thanks for bringing it up in the thread, guys. From my perspective, being a creative professional has nothing to do with enjoying it because I loved it and am not a creative professional. It's just a damn good story with snappy writing. I will be acquiring the rest of the volumes asap.

If volume 1 was the highest of ups, it will have to go pretty far down for me not to enjoy it. :)

It's a nice ride. I found a dip in the middle, but that was probably more because I'd spent 8 hours straight reading it by then. It was good when I picked it back up a few days later.

Definitely check out Genshiken after. The quality of the line work in the initial volumes is muted in favor of tones and shading, but the latter volume detail and style is really something else. It's tops in my experience for quality of cinematic feel - I can't tell whether it's from the way the art is illustrated or because of the paneling. The frame syntax is nearly flawless, IMO.

It doesn't hurt that it has excellent pacing, timing, character drama, and sense of humor.

Just spent the afternoon driving around to the two Chapters here in London, trying to find Volume 11 of Bakuman, only to discover it's not being released here until next week.

KidDork wrote:

Just spent the afternoon driving around to the two Chapters here in London, trying to find Volume 11 of Bakuman, only to discover it's not being released here until next week.

I just walked to a brand new comic book store this morning only to discover that they don't have manga. I guess I have to continue to Amazon it.